Like Family
by Captain Crunk
Summary: A series of mostly unrelated one-shots about your favorite characters from New Girl! And the characters who you like, but aren't really your favorites. What's Nick's brother's name again? Anyway, these take place in seasons one and two and a few in the future. Healthy and regular doses of Ness.
1. music

Hey everyone! I'm in the hiatus-busting mood, so I'm gonna write some one-shots to take us through until we get to September (provided I can keep coming up with ideas). Feel free to give me some input on the writing, or maybe something you'd like to see!

This chapter is just some short scenes that take place randomly through the two seasons that have already happened and a little bit into the future. They're not really related, but they're kind of in order. Most of the rest of the one-shots will be missing moments scenes that have already happened through the seasons we've got.

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the rights to New Girl, or any of the songs or cds mentioned within this chapter.

* * *

Schmidt loved Queen. Queen was the soundtrack to his life. Freddie Mercury was the saint he prayed to when he had to get out of a crazy situation. Or into a crazy situation. Yeaaaah. After he got skinny he was Freddie Mercury for three straight Halloweens. When he first started working out, _Bicycle_ got him through rough elliptical days. He once self-completed to _Under Pressure_. _We Are the Champions_ was still the song he listened to before a date to pump himself up. When Cece asked Schmidt if he was humming _Fat Bottom Girls _while they made out, he responded,

"Hell yeah I am. Hell yeah. I am," and put on their Greatest Hits. Volume One. They finished during _Seven Seas of Rhye_ and despite herself, Cece loved every single second of it.

It bears repeating: Hell. Yeah.

* * *

Winston is like ninety percent sure that before him, Latvia had never heard rap music or the Wicked soundtrack. One of his teammates hears him singing _Popular_ in the showers one day and then the next day during warm ups, they play _Defying Gravity_ as a joke on him, but he takes it in stride. He feels unstoppable, sinking threes like nothing. It becomes his theme song of sorts, no matter how many he tries to convince him that in America, they call him _Big Poppa_.

He's no Biggie here. He's no Kanye or Hova or Rick Ross the Boss. But that's fine, because no wizard that there is or was is ever gonna bring him down.

* * *

One afternoon Jess walks in from school and the couch is packed. There are the guys, of course, Winston and Schmidt and Nick, and Nick's brother is visiting, too, and Remy is there, why in the hell is Remy there, and what are they watching?

They're focused on the tv like it's the Super Stanley Series or something but it's just some kids singing and dancing. "Uhh, guys, why are you watching High School Musical?"

"Oh hey new girl," answer's Nick's brother. This is the first time they're meeting and he doesn't even turn away from the tv, just waves in her vague direction. Schmidt is mildly offended with her question, saying, "Ugh, Jess, this is _not_ High School Musical, come on."

She gives it another shot. "Glee?"

Now all of them groan, Remy even throws his hands up in the air and corrects her, saying, "No! This is Victorious."

On one hand, she wants to know what Victorious is, but on the other hand, there's a really good chance she doesn't. What she definitely wants to know, though, is why five grown men are watching a Nick show. "So, what's up with watching this? Are you just really into the music?"

Winston shakes his head. "Nah, we're watching it for the plot." The rest nod in agreement and Jess frowns confusedly and just goes to her room to grade papers where things are normal.

Weirdos.

* * *

The worst thing about living with Jessica Day is how she gets in your head. Nick talks about it sometimes and Winston says, "Nah, man, I think you just wanna get up on that," because Nick is very blatantly in craaaaaving some Day-time entertainment.

But then one day he's switching his whites to the dryer and he's suddenly singing Jess's laundry song and he realizes that Nick isn't being emotional about it, Jessica literally gets stuck in your head and he knows it's going to drive him crazy, isn't it?

A few days later he's on the phone with Coach who is working in Santa Monica and thinking of visiting. "Hey, man, I know you weren't around Jess much, but you remember the way she sings stuff all the time?"

Coach is cracking up on the other side of the line and when he stops laughing he goes, "Let me guess man, her cupcake making song is haunting your nightmares?"

The two laugh and compare notes, deciding that if Coach ever moves back to LA, they're gonna record these and either put out a children's album or use them for hypnosis purposes.

* * *

Nick hates Taylor Swift and everything she stands for and the way she dresses and sings and her songs. Forever. Just because. Why? Just because, that's why. And in the same way she thinks that everybody is good and anyone can be redeemed, Jess thinks that she can bring Nick around to liking Taylor Swift.

What's weird though is that one day, she finds a T-Swift cd case in his car and when he's confronted about it he says it belonged to an ex of his and blows her off, but she wants to get to the bottom of it. So she devises a devious plan that is far subtler than she can normally pull off because she's really curious and not at all nosy so don't look at her like that, okay?

Nick is watching the six o'clock news one day because he's basically a seventy year old man and she decides to sit next to him on the couch. Under her breath she starts singing, "I _knew_ you _were_ trouble when you walked innnn…" and shortly after her starts looking uncomfortable and makes an excuse and goes to the bathroom.

Day three, he's talking with Schmidt in the kitchen and she comes up to them lightly singing, "It's a love story, baby just say… yesssss." Schmidt just looks confused, but Nick stops talking mid-sentence and says he's going to do laundry.

"You know how to do laundry?" Schmidt calls to Nick, but Nick is already at his door and ignores it. Veeeeery interesting. The plot thickens for Detective Day.

By day 6 Jess is getting a little discouraged and maybe all of the weirdness is just coincidental, because she's been giving it her all and usually Nick would have exploded in a Nick rant by now. Deciding to give it one more shot, she gets him while she's helping him fix a leak high on the wall. She's holding a ladder for him so he's cornered and she starts singing, "I don't know about you, but I'm feeling thirty-twooooo!" and finally Nick just can't take it anymore. He grumbles and basically jumps off the ladder and rounds on her with his grumpy fury ablaze in his eyes.

"It's TWENTY-TWO! It's twenty-two and can you please stop singing Taylor Swift all over the place you're getting it stuck in my head and I hate it, I hate it I hate it I hate it!" This is the deepest she has ever seen Nick turtle face. It seems like the edges of his mouth are actually below his chin.

Jess just stares at him, wide-eyed and shock, and oh yeah, it was twenty-two. Crap. But he knew that. He knew he had been singing Taylor Swift songs all week.

AHA!

"So you do know I've been singing! Which means you know her music! Which means you listen to Taylor Swift!"

Nick knows he's caught and continues ranting, "I can't get it out of my head and I _hate_ myself for listening to it but I can't help it anymore." He leaves the room again and she's left there, alone with the ladder. What is she even going to do with this ladder, she had no idea they even had a ladder let alone where they keep it.

She leaves it there for Schmidt to clean up and goes off to plot how she's going to slip Taylor Swift lyrics into causal conversations to drive Nick up a wall. Turtles are fun if you have fun with them.

* * *

_Save Me_ was supposed to be the song that Schmidt and Nick toasted to at their ten year anniversary party. Not gonna lie, if things got really changed up down the line and they ended up marrying (for tax benefits, natch), that would definitely be their first dance.

Instead, _Save Me _is the background noise when he has an out of body experience that night. He's watching himself lose Cece in slow motion. Nick cheers him up in a hot air balloon and Schmidt takes a shower that night that's so hot it burns him a little while he feels himself coming open at the seams. Everything's wet so he's not positive as to whether or not he's crying, but he sings _Somebody to Love_ to the bathroom and just doesn't care who hears it. He has a beautiful voice. They should be so lucky.

Cece should be so lucky. Damn her. She should be so lucky.

* * *

In a really weird moment in the chronicle of weird moments that Nick and Jess share is this one day that Nick comes home from the bar late. Winston and Schmidt are both out of the house all weekend, Winston for radio station travel work and Schmidt to visit his family, so Jess is in a tank top and skirt dancing around the apartment when Nick walks through the door in the middle of the night. The lights are dim but they can both clearly see each other and when they make eye contact, Jess freezes mid dance and Nick stands still. He wonders how a girl so short can have legs that long.

Jess feels really awkward, being caught dancing around the loft like she was insane, and says the first thing that pops into her head- "Come here often, sailor?"

This breaks the ice a little as Nick rolls his eyes and unfreezes. Just Jess being Jess. "What are you listening to?"

"Just a mix tape I made myself a while back that I dance to sometimes when I'm alone," she answers, turning the volume down a bit. Nick nods and throws his keys on the bar. He took a near-empty bottle of Jameson home with him and polished it off after he parked his car to help him sleep, and now he's starting to feel it. Things have been weird between him and Jess lately. He's been feeling bizarrely uncomfortable around Sam and he doesn't know why. She's been looking different in a way he can't quite put his finger on.

He feels entirely unlike himself when he asks, "Just when you're alone?" and Jess doesn't know how to respond. The song is winding down and another one is coming up when he walks up to her and stands less than a foot in front of her face. Their mouths are completely dry and he tentatively lays a hand on her hip, like she'll bolt for bed any second, or Sam will pop out from behind the fridge and be all, "what the hell man?" But Sam isn't here.

The only sound is _Dancing in the Moonlight_ playing on the speaker and Jess reaches out for his hand that he's kinda just holding up and they start moving in time with the music.

This was always an innocent song that her dad used to play and now that she's moving along with Nick in an empty apartment at three in the morning, she hears it for the first time and she's starting to flush.

_We get it almost every night, when that moon gets big and bright it's a supernatural delight._

_Everybody was dancing in the moonlight._

They make eye contact for a bit but it's feeling a little too intense for both of them so she lays his head on his chest while they sway. Halfway through the song they trip and the spell is broken out of nowhere and instead of being cool and dancing with Jess, Nick realizes they're just touching and swaying and it feels so weird and he feels this weird pressure in his chest and he's staring at her lips now. He's felt like this before around her and he's never had any idea why, but it's a stronger feeling now and he literally can't rip his eyes away, and he's fairly positive that for some reason, he wants to kiss her.

He can't take it anymore. He chokes out, "Night, Jess," and walks away. She's a little annoyed that he left because the song was done but there's also something else. She didn't want him to just stay for the song. She wanted him to do more. She stays there, standing still until the song is finished.

_ Dancing in the Moonlight_ is the song he keeps hearing now when he thinks about her. When he dreams about her he hears it too, and he's never noticed that he has dreams about her until now. It freaks him out a little. In three weeks they actually kiss after a game and that freaks him out a lot, but when all is said and done, it's the song that comforts him at night.

* * *

Winston still plays the hand bells when nobody else is around. He has a small collection of them now and is pretty spectacular with him if he does say so himself. This is his little secret, except one day Nick catches him playing and it's their little secret from then on.

For Winston, Nick can stay quiet.

* * *

They take a group trip to Wal-mart at some point because Schmidt has deduced they're out of literally everything it takes to survive and while he can stop at Whole Foods for his normal person meals later on, the Cro-Magnons he lives with are entirely fine surviving off of Wheat Thins and two-ply toilet tissue. It's just easier to buy it all at one place.

_Don't Stop Believin_ comes on and by the end of it they're all singing along (and in Jess's case, dancing out the sunroof) so Schmidt gets an idea and shifts from radio to cd player. He switches disks until they're on his Queen Greatest Hits (the fourth copy he's had to buy since getting his first Walkman when he was twelve) and soon, they're belting out Bohemian Rhapsody. Nobody even notices that Schmidt spends four minutes "looking for parking" so they get through the entire thing.

For him, it's kind of a dream come true.

* * *

Coach moves back in sometime after Cece doesn't get married because he misses living with the guys. Jess moves into Nick's room and within three days he stops freaking out about it, which makes him impressed with even himself, and _nobody is going to tell Remy that five people are living here now, got it?_

Jess used to have this Sunday morning ritual where she would put on Motown music and dance around and grade papers and stuff and finally leave her room at like noon feeling refreshed and accomplished and all boogey-ed down.

"DJ Nick knows the importance of music in people's lives" is what she said one time to mock him, but wouldn't you know it, he's thrown a mix cd together and the first Sunday after moving in she wakes up to The Miracles and Nick crooning _You Really Got a Hold On Me_. She joins in and soon they're wrapped up in each other.

When her back arches and all the air feels sucked from her mouth, they're listening to _I Feel the Earth Move_ and the whole thing is just surreal. Nick co-completes with her and collapses onto her chest, and Jess feels like there's something there that wasn't before. She's tumbling down.

Tumbling down.

Tumbling down.

Tumbling down.


	2. 500 nights of celebrity paradox

Hey guys! Chapter 2 centers around the trope "Celebrity paradox", or "the issues that arise from creating a fictional universe in which that fictional universe does not exist, but the actors playing those roles do" (from tvtropes). Credit for the idea goes to the outtakes for season one where Nick says something about Jess dressing like Zooey Deschanel, and the trend of one-shots incorporating movies into the plots (cred to MayaLala for starting that as well as Newgirl78 and You-Drive-Me-Nuts-Miller for writing stories everyone should check out).

As always, if anyone has any ideas they'd like to see in a future chapter, pm me or leave a review! I'm up for anything. Alllllmost anything.

Disclaimer: I don't own New Girl, or any of the movies discussed within.

* * *

500 nights of celebrity paradox

Some days of work at the bar felt like they would never end. Other days of work at the bar actually would never end. They would keep going forever and Nick would never get to see his friends or family again and he would never be allowed to sit and those same idiots would just keep yelling and ordering Jaegerbombs for eternity and oh look, it's closing time, _thank every god. _

This had been one of those days.

He made it back to the apartment at about three a.m. and through some miracle of divine compassion was able to get his key in the hole on the first try and get inside. He expected everybody to be asleep, but could tell from the faint glow as he entered that somebody was watching tv. He was reminded of the time that Schmidt's laptop stopped picking up the wi-fi signal even though Nick had TOTALLY FIXED IT but whatever. Nick had come home to the sight of Schmidt really enjoying watching some Showtime. But not the annoying Spider Man 3 re-runs, no. The things that Showtime had on reaaaally late at night.

They didn't make eye contact for days.

Tonight, though, Nick was feeling a frisky kind of exhausted and threw caution to the wind, approaching the couch. Thankfully, it was just Jess watching some silly romantic movie. Problem is, she looked kinda weepy – big puffy red eyes, box of tissues next to her lap – so he decided to join her for a few.

"Hey Jess. Everything okay?"

"Not really," she responded without taking her eyes off the tv.

"Wanna talk about it?" he offered.

She shook her head no, still focused on the tv. Nick tried another approach. "So whatcha watching?"

"500 Days of Summer."

"Any good?"

"It makes me cry harder than Dirty Dancing." Nick wasn't sure if this was a good thing or not. "I've watched it twice already tonight." Well, that answered it. Kind of.

"Sick of Swayze?" he guessed, figuring it was something else.

"Schmidt said the only thing worse than watching me be sad on the couch watching a sappy movie all night was watching me be sad on the couch all night watching a sappy movie from the 80s all night," she deadpanned. "So at least now my misery is…" she took a second, and tried to imitate Schmidt, "Hip."

Nick frowned and took a moment to reflect on just how awful he was with these situations. There was such a wide array of things he could say in the English language or do with a human body, and he had no idea how to respond to her sadness. He decide to try keeping things light. "Hey. You ever notice that you much you look like…you know."

Her brow furrowed and she looked at Nick for the first time. With an eyebrow raised, she asked, "Look like what?"

"You know. Like the girl in the movie."

"Which movie?"

Nick wasn't sure if she was kidding or not. "This… forget it. Never mind." He shook his head and felt the exhaustion set in. He really had no idea what he was doing. It didn't even feel like his body that slid over a bit and adjusted position and by the time Nick knew what was happening, his body had lain down and his head was already in Jess's Indian styled lap.

Which felt super-awkward and something that hadn't even occurred to him to do as something that would help or even something that was normal. He shut his eyes firmly and decided to pretend to be asleep so he wouldn't have to deal with it if Jess said something about how weird it was and, in less than two minutes, he actually was asleep.

And Jess just smiled, even though she wasn't sure why. And a few minutes later, she started stroking his hair, even though she wasn't sure what she was doing it for.

* * *

And when she shook him awake around five in the morning because she was going to sleep, he was groggy and barely responsive and she said, "Thank you. This was nice," even though she couldn't quite put her finger on what was nice about it. For his part, he mumbled something close to "anytime" and stumbled off towards his bedroom, not remembering anything past laying down.

* * *

When Nick woke up, Winston was the only other one awake. The two sat in the kitchen drinking coffee and eating cereal at one pm.

Actually, the other two were probably awake and out doing things like not sleeping past noon, but the takeaway here is that Nick and Winston were alone in the kitchen. Better?

Nick consumed enough to be up for speaking and asked, "Hey, have you ever noticed that Jess looks like that famous chick?"

Winston nodded as vigorously as his body would permit. "Yeah, man! I told Schmidt and he wouldn't believe me. I showed him the videos and everything!"

Nick nodded enthusiastically in agreement before returning to his cereal. Then he thought about it for a second and got confused. "Wait- the videos? What videos?"

"Waking Up in Vegas, Teenage Dream, Firework, California Gurls- with my dawg Snoop, of course-"

"Wait," asked Nick with his hand up, "What are you talking about?"

"Katy Perry, dude, the chick Jess looks like."

Nick stared at him for a bit. Who the hell was Katy Perry? Screw this. "Y'know, never mind man. I'm gonna go lay back down for a while, I didn't get enough sleep."

Winston nodded, confused by the turn it had taken, but he wasn't much more alert than Nick, and said, "Kay man, sleep tight," to Nick's back that retreated back down the hall.

* * *

Winston and Nick are chilling on the couch in the middle of a Wednesday when Schmidt bursts through the apartment door and goes running into the bathroom without so much as a hello. They shrug at each other and wait.

There's a huge clamoring in there and Schmidt comes running out while re-applying hair product to jump into his room. When he comes back out, he's finishing his hair with one hand and trying to tie a new tie with his other.

They have to ask.

"So, uhh, Schmidt, any particular reason you're coming home in the middle of the afternoon to play dress-up? Did you suddenly realize your socks didn't perfectly match your eyes or something?" guesses Winston, bowl of fritos in his lap.

Schmidt is struggling with the tie, so he washes off his hair hand and uses both to try and get his tie in a fancy knot. "Gotta be quick, three things. One, my socks don't always have to perfectly match my eyes, that's just gravy on top of the perfect outfit." The tie isn't going so well. "Two- thanks for finally using a bowl with your chips, isn't it so much better than reaching in a bag? Now we just need to work on coasters." He's getting really frustrated, unties the whole thing, and starts from the beginning. "And three, I just found out who we're marketing pitching to this afternoon- hellogiggles! It's a website."

Nick and Winston look at him blankly, taking in his broad smile. Schmidt seems to be waiting for a response, but the two are just perplexed. "Schmidt, look, while I'm not surprised you're very excited about something called hellogiggles, wouldn't that be more a Jess thing to be freaking out over?"

Schmidt rolls his eyes. "Nick, is run in part by none other than Zooey Deschanel – yes, THE Zooey Deschanel. Which means I'm meeting a celebrity today!" All Nick and Winston have for him are blank looks. "You know, the chick in Elf?" He tries, running into his room to change something else.

"There was a chick in Elf?" Winston asks. Truth be told, he started getting his mojo on with a girl on halfway through that movie.

Schmidt is back in the living room and undeterred. He tries, "Yes Man, Bridge to Terabithia…" and many others, all to blank looks, before he gets to, "500 Days of Summer…" and Nick finally remembers who he's talking about.

"OH! Why are you so excited to meet her?" he asks, also unclear as to why Schmidt has decided to put on a different suit jacket that was basically the exact same color as the last one.

Schmidt is having trouble with the buttons, he's so excited. "Are you kidding? She's a celebrity, she's really hot, and she's recently divorced. I could be getting a milestone here! I've gotta show her some top-shelf Schmidt and get my foot in Hollywood's door. Do you think she knows Kanye? How is my hair?"

"Schmidt, you do realize she looks just like Jess, right?" Nick asks, and Schmidt stops in his tracks.

"No she doesn't." Schmidt sounds very sure of this in the kind of tone you use where you want to sound very sure but you're suddenly second-guessing everything you've ever known.

"Whaddya mean she doesn't?" shouts Nick, throwing his hands in the air. "They're basically identical dude, her face is like half bangs and another quarter eyes!"

The two start yelling at each other for no good reason when Winston goes to get his laptop. They're still arguing when he comes back from his room, and still going when he finally connects to the crappy wi-fi that Nick "fixed". At some point, they agree to bet five dollars that they're each right, and they're still arguing when Winston goes, "Woooooah. Guys. Check this out."

He goes on Jess's facebook and keeps her pictures open in one tab. In another tab, he's checked google images for this actress he's never heard of ("zoey deshanell actress" is close enough) and switching back and for between the pages make Schmidt's jaw hit the floor. Nick throws his fists in the air and lets out a triumphant whoop while Schmidt fishes his wallet out of his pants and throws a fiver at him. Schmidt is in the middle of saying, "I just never made the connection before. Well this just _ruins_ it for me," when Jess walks in.

"Hey guys, what's going on?" she asks, taking in the scene before her. Schmidt looks dejected with his tie askew, home from work in the middle of the day; Nick is doing some sort of strange victory dance while waving around a five dollar bill; and Winston- is Winston looking at a picture of her face on his laptop? What is this?

Nick basically skips up to her with glee chanting, "I won! I won!" and high fives her because "I'm not crazy and you're my new favorite actress!" Before she can ask any questions, he asks her if she wants to come with him to grab a glazed donut ("At three in the afternoon?") and she's out the door as soon as she came in, leaving Schmidt and Winston alone.

Winston looks on, wondering when Jess became the person that Nick went glazed donut grabbing with and Schmidt seems to be deep in a similar train of thought. They turn to each other and begin to speak at the same time, Winston stopping and insisting that Schmidt go first.

"You know, it's not even worth it at this point," he says, triple-checking that his tie is no longer askew. "She probably doesn't even know Kanye that well."

And instead of bringing up how weird Nick is around Jess lately, Winston finds himself comforting his best friend and assuring him that one day, he'll meet Jay-Z and Beyonce too.


	3. a friendship in four parts

Hey guys! This chapter is as AU as I've gotten so far, although I generally try sticking to the show's plot. As always, feedback is welcome and new ideas are cool too.

This idea comes from jessicaaday's tumblr, which is a wonderful fan blog that you should all check out (and, conveniently enough, is the same as her username). The general idea was how cool it would be if Nick and Cece were closer and talked about how much they liked each others' best friends. This starts after the ending of season one and continues through to the ending of season two.

* * *

i. newness

"Is it weird that we're doing this?" Nick blabbed, cutting Cece off while his mouth was half full of sandwich.

The fact that "this" started was pretty weird. After all, Nick's best friend had just dumped Cece in a desert and the two weren't particularly close before that. But Jess kept coming to Nick's bar with Cece until he had gotten pretty friendly with both of them. And when Jess insisted he go to lunch with her and Cece, before canceling the plans once Nick and Cece were already there, ("I'm not parent trapping you guys, I swear, but my cousin is in LA and I totally forgot I had to get him from the airport"), they kinda just went with it. This was the fourth time they had met for their weekly lunch. Cece was a good listener and Nick was funny and they actually made pretty good friends.

Cece took a bit and considered as she chewed, and then waited to respond until after she had swallowed, like a normal human being. "Probably. But I'm happy we are."

Nick nodded in agreement, swallowing, and taking another bite before speaking because of course he did. "I just feel weird not telling Schmidt or Jess."

"Eh, it'd be just as weird telling them," Cece answered with a shrug before sipping at her water through a straw. "Getting uncomfortable keeping something from Schmidt?" she jokingly asked with a smirk.

"Not like I'm really keeping much from him. I mean, we're just two friends getting lunch."

Cece nodded. "Exactly. It's a little weird keeping it from Jess, yeah, but she'd probably accidentally blab to Schmidt and then it'd be awkward. And it's not."

"Not at all. Just two friends enjoying lunch."

"There we go," confirmed Cece before she went back to telling Nick the story of how she had met Jess. By the end, Nick was laughing so hard he had nearly choked on his sandwich.

"You really enjoy hearing about Jess, don't you," she guessed with a slight smirk.

Nick was caught off guard. "Well, I mean, she's my friend."

"Yeah, but you don't like it when I talk about what my relationship with Schmidt was like."

He shifted a bit. "That's because it makes me distinctly uncomfortable on a number of levels."

"Or," she cuts him off, "You just want to hear about Jess. And talk about Jess. Because you like Jess."

Nick shook his head. "Look. Look, Jessica is great. Funny, charming, smart…"

"You're dancing around the issue at hand," she accuses with a smile and a finger point.

"Okay, okay, she's very nice to have around to look at and things!" he concedes, throwing his hands up. They both laugh.

"See? You think she's really hot."

Nick scoffed. "Well of course she's really hot. She's like, ridiculously attractive. She's crazy attractive and it makes other people – not saying me here," he says, with a finger point, his voice sounding defensive, "just other people in general – it makes them a little crazy too, but whatever."

"I'm fairly sure that's just you," Cece responded with an eye roll. She could tell that Nick was into this Jess. Like, _really_ into her. Cece was kind of girl who would walk into a room and have every guy's feet pointing at her. But not Nick. Nick only had feet for Jess. "Look. I love Jess. I tell Jess that's she's crazy hot before dates. Is she? She's pretty. Probably really pretty. But if your mouth is going dry just talking about her, that's not just the way she looks, you're just really attracted to her."

Nick hadn't even noticed that his glass had gone from 3/4ths to empty since they started talking about Jess until he reached for it and all that was left was some jingling ice. "Look," he began with a sigh. "This is just weird and uncomfortable and Jess and I are just room… friends, and that's how it'll stay."

"For now," Cece added, with a wink. "Anyway, relax. I think she likes you too."

"Too? That's still an unfounded allegation," he asserted, nervously relying on roundabout lawyerspeak. He paused for a second, before continuing, "And, really?" He meant for it to sound like a derisive half-snort, but there was a vulnerable optimism to his "really?" that didn't go unnoticed by Cece.

Cece smiled at his accidental showing of hope. "Yeaaaah, I kept meaning to ask her why though."

Nick put on a sour face before they both laughed and moved on. Before leaving, they stopped at the door.

"Sooo… same time next week?" Cece offered.

Nick half-smiled. "Yup. Same place? Love their ham."

"You betcha. Try to stay out of trouble with Jess now," she playfully warned, wagging her finger at him.

That was met with an eye roll and a snort. "Trust me. I'm not planning on it."

Cece's smile got smaller and she looked thoughtful for a second. "Nick, when – not if, when – that time comes, I don't think it'll be something you planned. But you'll like it just the same."

Nick smiled and nodded and most importantly, didn't refute it at all. They exchanged goodbyes and he drove back to his apartment thinking more seriously about it than he had at any point before.

* * *

The only thing that interrupted these thoughts was coming back to the apartment. Schmidt was sitting at the kitchen counter when Nick walked in. "Whatcha been up to, Nick?" he asked, pronouncing his name sharply.

Nick was taken aback by his tone. Did he know? "Oh, you know, errands and stuff. Dropped off… dry cleaning." Shit. Nick didn't even know where the dry cleaner's was. Or what clothes he would bring there.

Of course, Schmidt knew before the absolutely ludicrous lie. What was he dry cleaning, flannel? His Guns N Roses t-shirt that he wore two days in a row last week, did he _really_ think nobody would notice? But anyway, it was pretty obvious where he had been heading on Sunday afternoons for the last three weeks. Going to the imaginary dry cleaner's wouldn't have him coming back smelling like cocoa and sea salt. By now, Nick was trying to hide his obviously lying face by checking for nothing in the refrigerator.

Schmidt saw that Nick was gonna be weird about it so he changed subjects. "Oh. You know who I haven't seen in a while?" That being said, he didn't do a very subtle job of changing subjects. "Cece."

Nick literally froze with his body sticking halfway in the fridge as if Schmidt would go away if he thought that Nick had just become a statue. It didn't work after six seconds, so he popped his head out of the fridge and decided to double down on the lie. "Me neither, man."

Schmidt nodded, as if taking his answer into consideration. "Yeah, it's been a month. I kinda miss her." Nick just nodded along, mildly turtle-facing as he did it. "You know, if you did see her-"

"Why would I see her?" Nick asked, cutting him off a little too quickly. His lower back was quickly turning into a swamp.

Schmidt sighed. He was trying to go along with this lie, he really was, but Nick was making it hard. So he just decided to go the direct route. "If, like, you got a friendly cup of coffee with her, hypothetically, or something, you could tell her that I hope she's doing well?" Even though it was Nick that was caught in the lie here, Schmidt looked kinda vulnerable.

Nick's brow furrowed in mild concern. Schmidt wasn't the type to ask for favors in such a roundabout way, or let him go once he caught him in a lie. He was probably still hurting over the Cece breakup. "Sure man. If I did that, I'd tell her that for you. Anyway, I'm gonna go take a shower, I'll talk to ya later man."

Nick hurried to the bathroom to get the Everglades out of his shirt while Schmidt sighed and decided he needed to help teach his friend how to lie better- "Short, simple, vague" wasn't doing the trick. What he wouldn't give to see Cece right about now – At least Nick could have the decency to lie well enough that he wasn't rubbing his face in it.

* * *

ii. comfort

Within a few months, they had settled into the comfortable kind of friendship that didn't constantly keep getting lunch. Sometimes, she'd drop by the bar; on occasion, he'd send her a good luck text before a big shoot. And now, he was calling.

"Hey Cece, are you at work?"

"Hi, and, nope," she replied, before blowing on her nails. "Well, kind of."

"Kind of?"

"I'm doing my nails, and looking good is my job, but I'm not actually at work. It's a gray area."

"Oh. I see. Look, I've got a dilemma. I'm trapped between a rock and a hard place."

"Let Cece help you out."

This is what was great about her. She loved getting in on problem solving stuff like this. "Well, it turns out 4D has an apartment parking space and I have to decide who to give it to- Schmidt or Jess."

"I see."

"And I've decided on Jess."

"Makes sense."

"Am I doing the right thing here?"

Cece sighed and thought about it for a second. "Nick, are you doing this because you think it's the right thing to do, or because you think Jess is hot."

It was Nick's turn to think a bit. "Ehhh… little of column A, little of column B." She could basically hear his turtle face through the phone.

Cece smiled at this. "Good. That's a very good reason to do it. I fully support you. And Nick?"

"Yeah?"

"Is Jess the rock or the hard place?"

She could hear a frustrated sigh. "It's an imperfect metaphor. Gotta go."

Cece smiled at the phone after he hung up. Boy got it baaaad.

* * *

iii. sharing

The kind of friendship where he would go to her when he needed advice.

"Did you really though?" Cece asked, skeptically.

"Did I really what?"

"Moonwalk away," she explained, questioning a detail of his story. Because the way Jess had described it, it was more an awkward shuffle with some arm flailing. It was getting really fun, having both of them coming to her whenever they had something happen between them. Hearing both sides of the stories was a really cool part of this friendship triangle.

"Yeah, it was pretty dumb of me," he began to explain, before being

cut off with, "No, I mean, are you actually moonwalking? Do you know how to moonwalk?"

"Of course I do!" Nick defended himself, his defensive rebuke bringing out some spite.

Cece's skepticism showed heavily in deadpan expression. "Show me."

"Now?"

"Yes."

Nick tried moonwalking across her apartment floor as Nadia entered. "Ha ha, bartender without razors or hair product can do moonwalking," she said while she walked out the door.

"See! She thinks it's moonwalking!"

Cece sighed and slapped her palm to her forehead. "Nadia… Nadia gets confused between Law & Order and the nightly news. You should see how afraid she gets about walking places at night, she always thinks she's going to find a body." Nick giggled at that.

"Seriously though Nick, what are you going to do?" She didn't come across as matronly often.

Nick sat and sighed and rubbed his face, pushing on his eyeballs so hard they hurt a little. "I have no idea. I don't like change, or unpredictability, or any of this. What did Jess say?"

She shook her head. "Nick, you know that's against the rules. I told you when this whole Jess and you mess started that I would talk to you about it, but I wouldn't sell either of you out. And unlike you, I can keep secrets." Nick knew she meant business, and that she was certainly a force to be reckoned with, so he didn't push it.

"I don't think the way I am now could do this, y'know? I would have to change for this. The Nick Miller I am now breaks stuff and can't hold himself together and gets really nervous under pressure and can't handle anything more serious than a one night stand with a coed and—"

Cece shushed him. "So change."

Nick looked up at her, vulnerable and worried. "How?"

"I dunno," she admitted with a shrug. "Whoever you think the guy Jess should be with is like, be that guy."

He shook his head. "But then I'm changing for a relationship and that's silly."

"Why?" she asked. "Really, why. Look," she began, sitting next to him, "I'm about to… drop a knowledge carpet bombing on your suspected ignorance training ground, or however Schmidt says it. I hope you're ready. Buckle up?" He smiled slightly at her attempt to match Schmidt-like levels of bravado. "People change. People change for a lot of reasons- some people change because they want to be thinner, they want to make more money, they want to be more like Kim Kardashian- all kinds of dumb stuff. None of us are perfect, and we're all going to change at some point, and what better reason is there to change? You're in love."

"I'm not," Nick responded with a shake of his head, getting defensive again.

Now Cece was getting frustrated. She threw her hands up and said, "This makes you happy!"

"This frustrates me!" To demonstrated, he flailed his arms again, not unlike his "moonwalk".

"This _will_ make you happy, and that's the best reason for anyone to change," Cece said, with the kind of definitive voice that Nick knew better than to question. It wasn't worth being contrarian over this. She was right.

Nick was quiet for a minute while he thought it over and Cece let him sit in silence. She was like lots of women in that she wished she would get that special moment in her life when they could take her powerful, feminine hands and mold the perfect love for two of her friends. She wanted to bring life to this, to tend to it and nurture it and see it grow before her. She saw daylight after this tunnel, and she'd be damned if they didn't see it too.

Nick sighed and nodded his head like he had reached a conclusion. "Where do I start?"

The Mystical Matchmaker Ms. Parekh was beaming.

* * *

iv. support

The kind of friendship where she came to him for advice, too.

On the eve of her arranged wedding, Nick found himself on Cece's living room couch in the dead of night.

"That henna stuff is pretty cool," Nick said in a low voice. He didn't want to wake up any of the models sleeping in Cece's apartment at 3 am. The only thing that kept a model from turning full harpy was her beauty rest.

Cece sat opposite him on her couch, bathed in the low light of the lamp. "Thanks, Nick." She seemed distracted, like she wanted to be alone. Which was silly, she was the one who called him asking him to come here.

"Nervous?" Nick offered, half smiling.

Cece nodded. "I dunno. I'm not sure if this is the right thing." She paused a moment. "Do you think Schmidt's gonna do anything?"

"Do anything? Like what?"

"I'm not sure," she answered with a shrug, "try to ruin the wedding?"

"Well, Shivrang is already riding in on a white stallion, so that's out," Nick joked, and Cece laughed for the first time in hours. That was what was great about Nick – when it came down to it, he could make you laugh even if you didn't think you could.

Nick got serious looking. "Cece, do you want Schmidt to ruin the wedding?"

She let out a long, rattling sigh that seemed to come from every part of her. "I… I don't know." She sniffled a second and said, "Nick, don't let me cry. Don't let me be ugly at my wedding."

"C'mere," he says, and envelops her in a hug, rubbing her back. She cried a little, but not enough to look ugly at her wedding, because there was never really any doubt that Cecelia Parekh would look gorgeous at her wedding.

* * *

Later the next day, Nick uncalls it mostly because Jess may be the best thing that could ever happen to him. But it's also partially because Winston always knows what's best for him, and partially because he won't be a little Schmidt and run from his problems, and partially because he knows that the old Nick would have given up on this and what Cece would say about that.

Jessica Day is a damn good reason to change.

Thanks, Cecelia.


	4. archipelago of kisses (i)

Hey guys! Thanks for all of the feedback so far. I wanted to give it a while before I wrote something that was really Jess and Nick focused so I could feel like I had a better grip on the characters, and here it is. This all takes place after the end of season two, this chapter taking place the night of the wedding.

archipelago of kisses is titled after a Jeffrey McDaniel poem of the same name (which I recommend looking up, not because it has to do with the story at all, it's just a really good poem). It's split up into more than one part because it's long. I'll probably throw a chapter or two in between parts, but for now, I hope you enjoy the beginning!

Disclaimer: I don't own New Girl or Archipelago of Kisses (the poem).

As always, feedback is more than welcome and I can feel myself becoming a better writer because of it. Thank you, always.

* * *

archipelago of kisses (i) – bury me in an avalanche of tingles

Nick peeled out of the parking lot with a hard right while Jess cried out in protest. This great wonderful thing they had started out with them going the wrong way entirely. That's the kind of detail that would turn out to be foreshadowing in sad stories. Thankfully, Nick Miller and Jessica Day were due for a happy one.

"Why would you wanna go slower?" Jess shouted, incredulous at Nick's bizarre choice of route, but laughing far more than when she normally shouted at him.

He was laughing fairly hard too, but shouting along himself so he wouldn't be outmatched, saying, "We're going to the same place! What's the big deal?"

Jess was laughing so hard she was crying. The nighttime city lights were blurring into one glorious long strip of radiance. She started speaking in her Judy Garland voice because it just seemed like the right thing to do. "The big deal, Nicholas, is that I don't remember if I locked the apartment door, and also, that I want to do things with you."

"Oh, you want to do things with me now, what kind of things are we talking here?"

Her laughter died down. "With you, to you… sideways things. Dirty horizontal dancing things. Maybe even vertical things. Are you ready, Nicholas Miller?" she asked, with a challenging eyebrow raise.

He had noticeably picked up speed since she started talking. "Alright, so I'll be taking the quick way from here then," he said, his voice coming close to cracking between _quick_ and _way_, the same time she slipped her fingers over the hand he had resting on the center console.

Jess wiped the lingering tears of laughter from her eyes but the city lights were still a blur, the avenues looking as if they were infinitely long and endlessly bright. They were comfortably silent for a few minutes while their fingers gradually laced together. He steered easily, occasionally glancing down at their hands, and then to her, and back to the road with a broad smile.

"To answer your question, I went this way because it looks nice at night. With the way the lights are and all." His voice sounded foreign, even to him. Softer than usual.

Jess wasn't expecting him to break the silence, so she responded, "Hm?" in the way you do when your brain heard them but is taking a few seconds to actually understand what was said, before following up with, "Oh, okay," when she caught up. She chuckled to herself for a moment. "You're such a…" she trailed off, looking him in the eye.

"I'm such a what?" he challenged, his head jumping to conclusions like _goofball _or _child_ or _poor navigator_.

Jess shook her head. "I don't know what you are, Nicholas." Her lips curled into a smile as she continued, "You're my favorite." He liked that answer. It made him feel warm. She raised their clasped hands to her mouth before kissing his knuckles with lips, so softly he wouldn't know if she was even doing it if he hadn't seen out of the corner of his eye. And for all the gentleness of the kiss, he could feel it, shooting up his arm.

She kept going, pressing soft kisses to two more knuckles before turning his hand over and moving down to his wrist. Her mouth was pressed to his pulse when he pulled into a parking space, and her eyes shot up at the sudden stop. She didn't move and they sat there for a second, eye contact firm, his veins thudding hard under her lips. Her head moved up ever so slightly and the light suction sound broke the silence that had enveloped them as soon as he pulled up.

His one hand felt so large in both of hers, and sudden hand-holding felt so foreign to her, like something she had never done before and had no idea how to do in the first place. She pressed the pads of her fingers to the heel of his palm, digging her nails in slightly while he released a long breath. When he finally said, "We should go upstairs," his voice sounded as hoarse as it did after he had to lift something heavy, which Jess knew from all the times she had watched him lift heavy things. She loved his voice like that. At the sound of it, she took a second to dig her fingertips in the slightest bit deeper before quickly releasing.

They were a flurry of motion, hands flying to their seatbelts to undo them and get out of the car. Jess couldn't get the lock right, which was ridiculous because it was her car, and by the time she did Nick was yanking her door open and pulling her out by the hand. They hustled to the door of the building, Jess basically skipping in her sari, and ran to the elevator which was mercifully ready for them on the first floor. They stepped inside and Nick was against a wall, furiously pulling her body towards him until every part of them was touching at once.

Dale, the night guard, had seen some hot and heavy stuff from the elevator security camera. This was nothing like that. This looked desperate, with Nick's hands being unable to decide where exactly they should go to best pull Jess into him and Jess trying to press her mouth into his so hard it looked like she was trying to go through him, like they had been the first in all humankind to discover the_ kiss_ (\ˈkis\, noun) and felt in to be their duty to make up for centuries of lost time. Frankly, Dale thought they could work on their technique.

The elevator bell dinged and neither of them noticed, absorbed in each other's faces. Nick finally cracked an eye open and saw that the door had opened and grabbed her by the shoulders and squeezed a bit. Her eyes shot open and she looked behind her, taking a step out of the elevator and dragging him with her, hand in hand. When they got to the door, she turned her back to it and started kissing his neck while he fumbled for his keys. Front right pants pocket, no, front left, no, how was he supposed to focus like this, not in the back pockets, she was still going, jacket pockets, what was he looking for again, screw it, this isn't working. Frustrated with the entire existence of locks and keys, he grabbed her by the waist and kissed her, like an elevator kiss, like the first time they kissed in the hall, but now with her back pressed against the door and her feet on their toes, struggling to push as much of her body up into him as she could.

"Give me a second here," he rasped out as he broke the kiss off, their foreheads touching. She gave a weak nod, strangely aware of the warmth his lips left on hers. He finally remembered the inner pockets of his jacket and found them there, where he had stuffed them earlier in the day. He was just so happy to have inner jacket pockets that he stuffed everything in them – phone, keys, wallet – just in case he had to pretend to be Miami Vice and whip something out like a gun.

(When he was leaving the bathroom earlier, he did exactly that to the mirror and looked _totally_ badass, which is coincidentally when he decided he needed more jackets with pockets on the inside.)

He got the key in the lock and they both burst into the empty apartment. Schmidt was probably hiding behind a large fern or ficus somewhere or something and Winston was – wait, there was something important to remember about Winston, and now was a terrible time to do it with her sitting on the counter and kissing him furiously, wrapping her legs around him as well as the sari would allow for.

They broke from kissing just for long enough for Jess to ask, "Bedroom?", Nick to respond, "Whose?" and her to answer, "Does it matter?" followed by two smiles and another kiss. Nick carried her to his bed because they used her car earlier and in his extremely clouded mind, that was the soundest of logic for the situation. He dropped her on the suit he wore earlier in the morning that he was going to burn first thing after he woke up because the jacket had no pockets on the inside.

They were in his bed now, the both of them. She was in a gorgeous sari and he was stylin' and profilin' and wearing Schmidt and soon they were gonna be in nothing cause they were SO gonna bang. Jess smiled again against his lips at the thought. They were gonna get it oooooooonnnnn- "Wait."

Why. Why wait. Wait? Why wait why.

"There's something I wanna say, Jess," Nick whispered into her mouth. They laid parallel on his bed, faces close to touching, silence hanging heavy in the room, lights dim while they breathed in the same air. And here was Nick, choosing _now_ of all times to share his feelings.

"Like, right now?" she asked, just to make sure.

He nodded, not moving his head. "Yeah, I think I need to say this now." Jess swallowed and nodded and waited for him to go on, but he just kept looking her in the eyes.

The suspense was killing her. "And this definitely isn't something you could've said in the car? Because the car ride took twenty minutes longer than usual, just saying."

He smiled sheepishly at that. "Oops. But, no, I need to say this now." She gave him a few more seconds while he freaked out internally in a mix of not remembering exactly what he wanted to say and not having the force to just come out and say it.

"Hold on- I want to hear what you have to say," she started, keeping her mouth inches from his, whispering her words right into his lips, "But can we just take a second to appreciate how, in this situation, I am definitely not being your cooler right now?"

He chuckled for a second. "Okay Jess, you aren't my cooler right now."

"Good. And, for this very second, you're being your own cooler?"

"Alright, alright, I'm my cooler sometimes, you win."

She smirked at his eye roll. "Good. Cause I am trying soooooo hard to get you some action."

"Look, I practiced this with Tran, okay, so just let me say it," he said now, at full volume with his frustration rising, even though she was still inches from his face. He was going to be fine. She was trying to get him some action now.

This was just Jessica Day, and everything was going to be all alright. He let out a long, calming breath at the thought.

"Jess – Jessica. You are a beautiful woman, and my life has not been the same since I met ya, and you just – you make me feel ways that I didn't think were even real. I'm Nick Miller. I bought a pair of jeans when I was 22 and I got rid of them because they ripped in the crotch when I was 27 and nowhere in those five years did I wash them and being around you makes me want to learn about art and figure out the difference between sunny side up and over easy and you're just so annoying in a way I've gotten so used to and – and I can't imagine being without."

She began to tear up as he went on and when he finished she gave him a watery smile and choked out, "Nicholas, that has to be the sweetest thing –"

"No no no no don't cry don't cry we're totally gonna get freaky now!" he said, trying to kiss her to stem the tears. She kissed him while she laughed into his mouth at his attempt to match her use of euphemisms.

She just kept laughing though, and soon he was laughing too even though he had no idea what exactly was so funny. "What is it, am I doing this wrong or something?" he asked, half-jokingly offended.

"No, no, not at all, this is all… this is all wonderful," she assured him, laying her hand on his chest. "It's just, I was picturing you saying all of this to Tran."

He laughed harder now. "Yeah, some of that was improvised. Sometimes I look at you and I can't really control what I'm saying. Still, I guess it was a pretty intense moment for me and Tran."

She went on, "Yeah, you guys just relaxing with some water meditation in the pool, and you turn to him and intimately say-"

"No! No no no," he yelled, his face grimacing, "Don't make it weird Jess, he's just like – my dad, if my dad was Asian and ever listened to me, it's just, it's, it's complicated –"

Jess just laughed lightly again, a throaty laugh that seemed to remind the both of them that they were lying next to each other on his bed. "Oh you," she said, a lazy smile matched with heavy-lidded half-closed eyes, "Come here." She pulled him the requisite two inches it took to get him into a kiss. Things were getting hubba-hubba hot 'n' heavy until, of course, Nick interrupted the action again.

"Wait, wait –" But Jess was not having it.

"What now, Nick, what is it now, please tell me this can just wait because I don't think you really grasp just _how much _underwear I'm not wearing at this very moment –"

Nick's eyes just got a little wide from surprise at her outburst. "I just wanted to ask if I could put on Cotton-Eyed Joe."

He laughed while her nostrils flared and her eyes went a little wider in rage (how could they even get any bigger?). Before she could respond, he kissed her again and rolled away, pulling her on top of him. She seemed a lot less angry at that and kissed him back, forgiving him for his little joke. As it would turn out, that would be the last (coherent) thought he would vocalize that night.

They laid there for a long while, wrapped up in each other, discovering the _kiss_. \ˈkis\, noun, something with lips. \ˈkis\, noun, something with lips and pressing and need. And hands. Hands everywhere, hands to pull close and to keep hold so the _kiss_ can grab root and grow. Nick, and Jess, the flowers from this _kiss_, blossoming into fruits like _passion _and _desire_, fruits like _happiness,_ and _love_, maybe even fruits like _marriage_, fruits like…

Like family.


	5. put a bird on it

Hey guys! I wanted a pranking chapter. And also something with Winston. So... BLAMO, this happened. For those who don't know, Portlandia is a sketch-comedy show with Fred Armisen and some other lady. It's a show making fun of hipsters in a way only other hipsters truly understand, so it's way over my head but I hear it's gut-busting hilarious for others.

Disclaimer: I don't own New Girl or Portlandia.

* * *

put a bird on it

Jess didn't like getting mad. She liked getting even. And then feeling bad about it, and then waffling between whether or not what she did was a fair response to whatever insult she had received.

You could say she was a delicate and complex ecosystem of impromptu vengeance and tenuous guilt.

But Schmidt had crossed a line. He had criticized the décor of her room, for no good reason, saying it looked "hipsterish" and something that rhymed with his name that was really mean and would earn one of her students detention. If she had students anymore. Not being a teacher anymore was really sad. Sometimes she would just

No. Focus. Angry Jess. Eye of the Tiger. C'mon.

She conscripted the easiest help for a prank she could find. Winston was watching Sportscenter in the middle of the afternoon when she found him in the living room.

"Hey, Winston, you busy?"

Winston looked at her and deadpanned, "This is the second straight hour I'm watching the same episode. Sports hasn't changed in the last hours. The Dolphins still won last night."

Jess nodded along like she understood. She didn't know why Winston wasn't happier about this. Dolphins were adorable. They were like the third best sea creature. After seahorses and penguins. Unless you counted otters. Did otters count? That would mean dolphins were fourth, because –

No. Focus! Raging angry Jess! Asshole Schmidt! Vengeance! Count of Monte Cristo! C'mon.

"Oh. Wanna do a prank with me?"

There was a spark in Winston's eye. "Absolutely!" He stood up. "Let's do it!"

Jess was a little taken aback by his zeal. "Don't you want to know on who? Or why? Or what I'm doing?"

Winston considered it and nodded. "Yeah, probably would be good to know." He sat back down. "Enlighten me."

Jess explained that Schmidt had been a total dummy about her awesome beaded lamp and, like, really retro moustache pillow and, oh, totally cool! poster of Bon Iver (it was an old one, from before everybody knew about them).

Winston listened along but who cares what happened, he was gonna be a part of a prank! "So what are we gonna do about it?"

"Well, at first I thought that we could replace all of his stuff with hipster-ish decorations, but I figured, there aren't enough thrift stores in the area to replace EVERYTHING, you know?" Winston nodded along, despite that being like one of the top three worst plans ever. "So THEN I figured I would just get a lot of bird stickers and put them on all of his things."

"Bird stickers?"

"I saw it on an episode of Portlandia, it's basically certified hipster gold."

Winston had no idea what Portlandia was but who cares, he got to be part of a prank! Even if it was dumb. This time, he rose to his feet slower. "Jess, friends don't let friends do stupid pranks—" he took a second to pause for effect, "—alone."

Jess jumped a bit and clapped and the two got off to work.

* * *

So apparently the Dolphins had lost to the Giants. Which was totally weird, because Jess was pretty positive that the Giants were a San Francisco baseball team, which brought up the issue of whether the Giants beat the Dolphins at baseball or football. And, I mean, if it was baseball, that's expected, the Giants are an actual baseball team! But if the Dolphins lost at their own sport, that was kinda silly of them. Or maybe they agreed to play a neutral sport, like cricket, or soccer, or True American, or –

"WHAT THE HELL?!" Hey, Schmidt was home!

"JESSICA CORDELIA DAY!" he yelled, barging into her room, without even knocking. Ruuuuude.

"SCHMIDT… SCHMIDTY SCHMIDT. You know, Cordelia isn't even close to my middle name," she responded, realizing that not knowing his first or middle name was probably worse than him making her's up.

Winston's head popped in the door right afterwards. "He says that's my middle name too, don't take it personally."

Schmidt turned on him. "Youuuu had something to do with this, didn't you? This was too dumb of an idea to be Jess's alone."

Winston grimaced a little and said, "Aaaaand I'm out," before walking away. A second later though, his head was back, saying, "For your information, it was her idea. And just for that, you deserve it." And then he was out.

Schmidt turned back to Jess. "I just have one question," he stated, finger pointed, voice quaking with malice and hurt. "Why. Birds."

Jess was quiet. The guilt was starting. "I saw it on Portlandia."

"Of course," Schmidt said with a disgusted face and a shake of his head. "Of course you'd watch Portlandia."

"It was a commercial! And Fred Armisen is a comedic genius."

Schmidt just kept shaking his head. "I'm disappointed in you, Jessica Day. And now, it's for a number of reasons." And with that, he walked out.

Jess popped her head in Schmidt's room after a brief shopping excursion. He was wiping the adhesive residue off of a nightstand that was left when he removed all of the stickers in a righteous fury.

"Hey Schmidt," she started, her face as apologetic as she could make it. "I'm sorry about the stickers."

Schmidt sighed. "I'm sorry too, Jess, I shouldn't have said that about the poster and the pillow."

"And the lamp?"

Schmidt shook his head. "No, the lamp still sucked."

They both chuckled at that. The lamp really did suck. "Well, funny that you mention it. I just went to Pottery Barn and I bought a brand new lamp, so now you can destroy the old one in any manner you see fit."

Schmidt smiled and opened his arms for a hug. When Jess took a few steps forward into the embrace, he put an arm out to block her. "Wait – is it a lava lamp?"

Jess looked confused. She hadn't thought of that. That would've been awesome! Damn. "No. Why?"

Schmidt smiled broadly again and pulled her in. "That's my girl." She was confused but relaxed into the hug anyway. She was about to pull away when Schmidt whispered in her ear, "You know I have to get you back, right?"

Her eyes went wide and she got a small chill down her spine. What was the worst he could do?

* * *

Jessica was going a little crazy. It had been a week and nothing from Schmidt- nothing at all. She knew that when it came, it would be subtle, so she was watching out for it. Thing is, she just never saw it.

She was out of the apartment when Nick picked up a marble notebook on the coffee table. "Who does this belong to?" he asked Schmidt, who was sitting at the counter and reading the paper.

"Oh, I dunno. Are those bird stickers on the cover? It probably belongs to Jess," he guessed, trying not to smile at his successful prank.

Nick shrugged in vague agreement and opened up to the first page. In purple gel pen was a big heart with the letters NM fancily drawn within it. Nick instantly turtle faced, closed the notebook, and dropped it on the table. "Schmidt, are you sure this belongs to Jess?"

The struggle not to smile was killing Schmidt. "I don't know man, could be Winston's?"

Nick's turtle face deepened as he walked out of the room. When Schmidt was sure he was gone, he gave himself the smallest of high-fives. Plan executed to perfection, as expected.

You can't touch the master. The master touches _you_.

Or something along those lines.


End file.
